The Overreaction To Rubio's Debate Stumble

He's performed well in every debate, including the large majority of last night's debate. Trump and Carson frequently commit mistakes far worse than Rubio's. Trump loses every debate, in the sense of being the worst performer of all, and he repeats himself far more than Rubio does and with far less substance. But Trump is often judged by a different standard. He's expected to cross a low bar, while somebody like Rubio is expected to cross one that's much higher. If Trump's irrational supporters are thought to be likely to keep supporting him after his performance in a debate, then his performance is treated like a success. As if Trump's irrational supporters set the standard for him, while somebody like Rubio has to meet a standard far higher. What we ought to be doing is judging all of these candidates by the same standard. Trump has flunked out every time, whereas Rubio has had some occasional bad moments (with last night's being the worst) while usually performing at the level of something like a B or B+. There were multiple segments in last night's debate in which Trump performed worse than Rubio did in his exchange with Christie (e.g., the segment on eminent domain, Trump's comments on healthcare), but Rubio gets a more negative response from analysts and worse media coverage. Similarly, Rubio can have more good moments than other candidates (e.g., his comments on abortion) and a better debate overall, yet get less of a positive response.

I think Cruz had the best performance last night. He'd be a significantly better candidate if he would always conduct himself that way.

10 comments:

The inexperience narrative will continue haunting Rubio. Rightly or wrongly he's also widely viewed as being in the pocket of the GOP "good ol' boys".

Those are two really big negatives to overcome, and I personally think they're insurmountable for Rubio this cycle. Maybe his shelf-life won't have expired in 4 years when Hillary is up for re-election after a disastrous 1st term.

Rubio's lack of experience is a problem, but the two frontrunners last year (Trump and Carson) never held any office, the same is true of the current frontrunner (Trump), and Cruz has been in the Senate for a shorter period than Rubio (as was Obama when he got elected in 2008). What Rubio needs to do is say more about his achievements at the state level (rising to become Speaker of the House in such a large state and being involved in drafting and passing significant legislation there) and what he's done in the Senate. He'll be at a disadvantage to Clinton in terms of experience in general, but he'll have an advantage in terms of what he did with the experience he had. Working to reduce taxes and dismantle Obamacare, for example, is better than Clinton's record of bigger government, supporting Obamacare (and worse), missteps on foreign policy (e.g., Benghazi), and so on. There are so many good and memorable lines Rubio could use against Clinton in this context. ("She's experienced at failure.", "Hillary Clinton has experience, but in all the wrong ways.", "We don't want somebody with that kind of experience.", etc.) Rubio has problems with inexperience and looking too young, but he also has strengths that are more weighty.

The notion that Rubio is "in the pocket of the GOP 'good ol' boys'" is too vague to have much significance, and I haven't seen any polling suggesting that anything like that should be expected to prevent him from getting the nomination. In the general election, Clinton has far worse problems than Rubio does in terms of being perceived as being in the pocket of undesirable sources.

I don't think Rubio's problems real or perceived would keep him from getting the nomination, because it appears that he's the GOP establishment's choice.

They might have preferred Bush all things being equal, not sure. Certainly they're not behind Trump or Cruz.

But the nomination wasn't really my focus. I was thinking about the general election. Anecdotally a lot of folks on the conservative side of the spectrum seem disillusioned with the GOP "insiders". This is self-evident because Trump's base is made up of a coalition that includes at least this type of disaffected voter. Alan K. is one vocal example.

The other candidates also took pains to paint themselves as Washington outsiders in the recent debate.

I think in the general election being perceive as a GOP "good ol' boy" establishment candidate would hurt Rubio, lack of polling data notwithstanding.

I totally agree. Also, while he didn't do it in the last debate, in most of the former debates he repeatedly kept trying to emotionally manipulate the audience and those watching on TV/internet. Every time he did so, I cringed. It's as if he thinks voters are dumb sheeple.

I thought the same or similar. I thought it was more the media trying to play up Rubio's canned speech (which, btw, I think practically every politician including Christie has at least a few canned speeches at the ready). I don't know if voters would care so much if the media hadn't made such a big deal about it. I thought apart from this exchange with Christie and the answer about women in the military Rubio had a strong performance.

Also, I think Rubio's main point about Obama knowing full well what he's doing is true or correct. In fact, others like Cruz have said as much on the campaign trail and elsewhere. Like I think Cruz once even said we need a conservative ideologue just like Obama is a liberal ideologue. Anyway, Rubio's essential point about Obama is spot on, I think.

We should keep in mind that there are some mitigating factors involved in Rubio's mishandling of his exchange with Christie. The theme Rubio kept repeating (that Obama is worse than incompetent) is a popular one among Republicans, and it's a common theme on conservative talk radio. And Christie is unpopular among a lot of Republicans, including on talk radio. I don't expect people like Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin to start generally giving Rubio as much favorable coverage as they give to other candidates anytime soon. But, in this particular context, there's a lot of potential for Rubio to get some positive coverage from talk radio and in some other places. See Nate Silver's column here for some examples of how Rubio's already gotten some positive response.

Here's an article on Trump's ridiculous comments about healthcare during the debate. Again, why isn't Trump getting far worse debate coverage than Rubio, given that Trump's mistakes were so much worse? It's easy to see how the ignorant average American would misjudge this sort of thing or why the liberally-biased mainstream media would be more interested in undermining Rubio than undermining Trump. But why do so many conservatives also apply a double standard?

The media will almost never give Rubio or Cruz a fair shake. They are terrified of articulate conservative Republicans going up against the doddering Bernie or the cringe worthy Hillary. Young vibrant dynamic Republicans might make the gray haired and balding Democrats look out of touch. Hillary's core constituency Pro-Choice Feminists will not desert her. Bernie is picking up the millennials who are freshly released from indoctrination at PC leftist universities. Cruz and Rubio absolutely must bring clarity, truth and energy to the Conservative ideals upon which our nation grew to greatness. Trump is a narcissistic media approval chaser who will say whatever he thinks will make waves. With no clear plans, or policies, and an innate inability to articulate them, I stand amazed at his continued popularity. Has America been transformed into ADHD juveniles who are distracted by shiny things, rather than thinking Americans determined to leave to their children a country that is not riddled with debt and growing animosity in society.